Re: Derailleur rattling?

On 5/14/2025 2:35 PM, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/14/2025 1:47 PM, Mark J cleary wrote:

Guy brings me a bike to check out. A Specialized Sirrus from about 2014 8 speed DT. Says the derailleur was rattling and shifting on its own at times. I put in on the stand and it seemed to shift ok really/ He need the back wheel trued also and was really a wobble.
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I ask him if he did anything and he said he did go home and clean and lubed the chain. The chain look pretty clean too. So I managed to get the wheel trued and it is pretty decent not like truing a precise road machine with expensive wheels but it is fine.
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I then cleaned the chain good again and adjust the back V brakes. Was a bit off but now they are even on both side. I lubed some point of contact in the brakes at the frame and then clean the rear derailleur. I then drop some lube at the pivots on the RD.
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I made absolutely no adjustment to the RD. I did make a very small FD adjustment to take out some rub on the big cog in front in the middle ring when in the small rear.
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Right now on the stand the bike shifts perfectly in all combinations and quite good I might add. So do you think what this guts problem was all along a dirty non-lubed chain? I know if things not lubed it will shift funny is ghost shifting a product of dry chain? In the end ghost shifting suggest to me much more problems but frankly I had this back working in 20 minutes.

 V brakes do not move on the frame post. The pivot is inside the arm. Some models can be lubricated easily and some cannot.
 Did you check that the cassette sprockets are tight on the body? A loose cassette lockring will give randomly sloppy shifts.
 Is the rear changer straight? Get your head behind it and sight the chainrings.  A vertical line through the pulleys should match one through the chainrings.
 Did you ride it?  There are some things which are not obvious in mid air.
 

Actually I did not ride it but I need to but it is a bit small for me. The cassette is up tight no issue there that I can see. Yes I did get and always to the rear look to see how things line up with the chain and cogs. It was ok really. I am going to test ride it and I remember once I had a self shifting chain issue and sure enough had not lubed the chain in a long time. Once lubed and clean it was fine.
I put some lube on the brake just kinda of dribbled in so that it seemed like it made movement to the inside as you mentioned. Yes they don't pivot at the frame but above that it seemed like I could get something in the pivot area. Not a but deal the brakes are fine.
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Deacon Mark